“the Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost

“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost
September 13, 2013

In a person's life many decisions have to be made; the decisions that we make will impact the rest of our lives.   Robert Frost brings such a decision to us in his poem, “The Road Not Taken”. In this paper, I will explain why this poem captured my interest, using terms and concepts from the text, describing one of the analytical approaches, using details from the text to support my interpretations, and evaluate the meaning of the poem, using the analytical approach I selected.
I believe everyone has found themselves at this point in their lives, which is why I was able to connect to the poem and why it interested me as I usually do not read classic literature.   I enjoy modern fiction with happy ending fairy tales, bestsellers that relate to me, and biographies about people and things.   I would not consider myself a literary reader, but interestingly enough, according to Bauerlein, “Reading a single poem in a magazine put one in the reader category” (Iannone, 2005).   I believe this was a good poem for me to complete my first response on, since it has many concepts from our readings.   The speaker uses a persona, metaphor, ambiguity, and imagination to tell the reader that the road he chose may have been the right or wrong one, but it will affect the rest of his life.   He realizes that he will be telling this story for years and he finds some sense of satisfaction with the decision that was made.

  The persona of the speaker is as a person who is approaching decision-making carefully and reflectively.   According to Reichman, “the persona is an individual as opposed to a loner, courageous and self-reliant, searching for his destiny” (Ravit Reichman, 2012). The writer also uses metaphor at the very beginning of the poem, "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood." This line compares a decision to two roads.   When a person travels they see two roads as a time to make a decision to choose one or the other....